


a heart like broken glass

by ndnickerson



Series: glass [1]
Category: Nancy Drew - Keene
Genre: F/M, Graduation, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-05
Updated: 2010-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:16:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nancy spends her graduation day waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a heart like broken glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glasheen25 (children_of_lir)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/children_of_lir/gifts).



> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/oldschoolfic/profile)[](http://community.livejournal.com/oldschoolfic/)**oldschoolfic** Spring Fling Ficathon 2010.

Nancy had never really thought about it. She knew other children scorned their parents' careers, even went as far as they could in the other direction, but she had always been incredibly proud of her father and what he did. In a way her entire life had seemed to lead up to this, all her cases and the contacts she'd made and the experiences she'd had, all the late-night conversations with her father over hot chocolate, everything.

Almost everything.

In the morning she was going to graduate from law school. Then came law review and sitting for the bar and officially accepting one of the offers on the table, but this, at least this, would be done, another step so close to the real beginning of her life.

Nancy lay on her back in the darkness, her gaze fixed on an unremarkable square of ceiling in her guest bedroom at her Aunt Eloise's house. She wasn't aware that her hand had snaked up under her nightgown until she felt the familiar ridge of the scar under her fingertips.

It looked like an unexpected and unnatural fold in her flesh, lined in a livid pink, and though she had been assured by the few people who had seen it that it was nearly invisible, Nancy hadn't been able to bring herself to wear a two-piece bathing suit or a midriff-baring top since the knife had slashed through her side. She was always aware of it; it felt like a thread through her skin pulled tight, sometimes aching with cold or pulsing with heat, but more often just a breathless sense of weightless loss.

She had other scars, but even the light line that marked a bullet graze across her upper arm hadn't done this much to her.

Her Aunt Eloise and Eloise's husband Seth had set up the barbecue on their patio and they, along with Nancy's father and Hannah and best friends Bess and George, had made their way through three bottles of wine, laughing and reminiscing about Nancy's cases in the dim starlight reflecting off the waves. Bess and George had gone to the beach for a late swim, still loose and giggly from the wine, but Nancy had begged off. Just before she headed up to bed, her father had stopped her with a brief hug.

"I'm proud of you, Nan."

Nancy's hand stilled, her fingertips lightly pressed against the seam of the scar. Her father was proud of her.

With a sigh she rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes. She couldn't have cold feet; it was done, she had the degree, and whether she showed up for the ceremony or not, she would have her diploma. The hard part was over.

The hard part was just beginning.

\--

Nancy had been through her share of graduation ceremonies. The only thing different about this one was her outfit and the person waiting to shake her hand and pass over the diploma. When Nancy glanced back during the interminable drone of the speaker's address, Bess was staring at her phone and George was engaged in hushed conversation with Nancy's father, but they both waved encouragingly at her when she caught their gazes.

When they were finally dismissed, Nancy's stomach was growling. She had been too keyed up to eat breakfast. Her father had invited practically everyone Nancy had ever known and as they tried to maneuver through the crush and get to the parking lot, Nancy was pressed to countless shoulders, enveloped in secondhand clouds of perfume and aftershave, given well-wishes and cards and small gifts until she was overloaded and had to hand most of them over to Bess. Half the people asked Nancy jokingly if she was going to join her father's firm, but she knew it was what everyone expected; even if she stayed in New York and took a position in one of the city firms, everyone would expect her to come back sooner or later, take over when her father finally decided to retire.

"Sure you don't want to go ahead and start a family?"

Nancy had been expecting that question, steeling herself for it, but that didn't make it any easier. It was asked by one of her Aunt Eloise's friends, a woman who only looked vaguely familiar, and Nancy faked a smile and murmured some noncommittal reply, sighing in relief when someone else snaked an arm around her waist and drew her in for another hug. She wasn't allowed personal space today, or boundaries, apparently.

En masse they headed to a nearby restaurant, an Italian bistro already overpowered by the graduation day crowd, and over sweating pitchers of water and the first uncorked wine bottle of the day their conversation was so loud it seemed to vibrate in Nancy's bones. Her seat felt like the center of a hurricane, if only because she seemed to mentally switch off when no one was speaking directly to her.

She had been waiting, the entire ceremony, for something that hadn't happened. For someone.

After lunch they took pictures, out on the beach; they had led a caravan out into the Hamptons and Eloise and Seth's house was overflowing, trays of sandwiches and bowls of chips and various tiny perfect confections in paper cups in the kitchen, coolers full of beer and wine coolers on the patio. While Bess and George changed into bikinis and started a beach volleyball game, Nancy, still in her gown and hood and cap, wrapped her arm around her father's shoulder and beamed into the camera as the wind split the tassel into individual strands beside her cheek. The wind tugged the hood and she felt it press against the base of her throat, and her skin was sheened in sweat, gleaming under the harsh sun as the waves crashed behind them.

Soon after she caught Bess grinning wickedly at her cell phone, a grey van pulled in and Joe Hardy emerged, laughing as Bess launched herself into his arms. He gave Nancy a sincere congratulations with his bright eyes sparkling and grabbed a beer and Nancy, for the first time, felt the years weighing on her. She remembered when Joe had been sixteen and Frank had been exasperated by him half the time and they had all been years away from being able to legally drink. Now Bess made a wicked margarita and Nancy could practically assemble long island iced teas in her sleep.

"You did it."

"I did," Nancy smiled, smiling as Joe wrapped his arm around her shoulders for a half-hug. "Let me guess, wherever Frank is, it's highly confidential."

"Frank?" Joe gave Nancy a carefully schooled blank look. "Who's that?"

George tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Hey cowboy. I think you and I had a bet going."

"Look, I don't know who this Frank character is, or any bet... maybe I'm at the wrong party."

"Sure you are." Bess crossed her arms. "I remember something about that bet. And once the grown-ups go to bed, Hardy, your ass is grass."

Joe backed away, palms up in a mock protective gesture, but the gleam in his eyes gave him away. "I'm afraid. Or I would be. If I had any clue what you two were talking about."

Nancy opened the gifts and cards, alternating between feigned and genuine enthusiasm at the cash, gift cards, porcelain figurines, books of legal humor and anecdotes and quotes for graduates. The crowd's murmur rose and fell around her, all laughter and champagne, and she felt her mood rise, but then she went upstairs to change for dinner.

The dress she had chosen to wear for dinner was ivory with a sage green satin sash, and she laid it out on the bed and took off her doctoral gown, running her fingers over the velvet strips on the sleeves, wondering if she would ever wear it again. She stepped out of the light dress she had been wearing beneath, and though she often avoided looking at her own reflection in the mirror, her gaze went immediately to her reflection and then to the scar.

They ordered endless rounds of pizzas from a delivery place in the Hamptons and Nancy kept waiting for someone to say "One word, Benjamin, plastics," but it never came. Bess started calling Nancy "Lawyer Barbie" and in retaliation Nancy left her three-inch black stilettos in the sand. George mixed up a pitcher of strawberry daiquiris and found a box of tiny paper umbrellas and Joe drank one with his pinky raised and his eyebrows raised higher.

No more school. No more school ever again.

"Did you always think you'd be here?"

They were around a bonfire, the four of them, and the few friends Nancy had made in the Hamptons, Emily Terner and a few of her friends, all glowing and happy at the unofficial beginning of the summer. The water was still too cold, really, and the night was cool. Nancy sat with the skirt of her ivory dress spread out in the sand and propped her chin on her hand.

She'd never thought about it, really.

"No," she admitted. "And yes."

Bess, smiling, tilted her head, and her sun-bleached curls trailed down her shoulder as she toyed with a red tumbler of daiquiri. "Okay, you have to explain that."

"I thought I'd have my own detective agency. I thought I'd be with the FBI or CIA taking down corrupt governments and trading secrets." Nancy shrugged. "I don't know. But this, I think this is going to be pretty great."

"You kidding?" Joe took another swig of his beer. "You were practically genetically engineered for this. You'll be the DA in three years."

"Care to make a bet?" George's eyes were sparkling.

There was always an end. Nancy had almost always been able to focus on the beginning, the fresh start, the way things would be different, but she felt out of her depth, now. For so long each decision had seemed to proceed logically from the last, but now she had five formal offers on the table and choices to make, whether she wanted to go back to Illinois or stay in New York or somewhere else in New England, to strike out for the coast, either coast, to practice estate law or do pro bono work or become a towering inferno of righteous rage as a criminal lawyer, but she could feel a tug and she didn't know what to do about it.

The party took hours to die down, and in a way it never did. The stream of guests left Nancy with handshakes and hugs and parting advice, asking when she would be moving back, when she would be settling down and starting a family, her father's golf buddies and partners in the firm and Ann Granger and almost everyone she'd ever met, it seemed. She felt like she was on some candid camera show, that the night would end with an unexpected and dramatic entrance, maybe Frank Hardy parachuting in wearing a tux, but the few guests who would be in the Hamptons in the morning arranged to meet for brunch and Nancy joined Hannah in the kitchen to help clean up, and the champagne had left a pleasant buzz in Nancy's head as she swept the last few plastic cups into a trash bag and sighed.

She was graduated. When she woke up in the morning she would be a JD.

Nancy picked up her cell phone and checked it for missed calls, found a few assorted well-wishes from the couple of people who hadn't been able to make it, and walked out to the beach with the phone still in her hand. Her feet were still stubbornly bare, and the sounds of Bess, George, Joe and Emily laughing over their card game faded as the roar of the sea grew. Nancy walked out until the water barely lapped over her toes and gasped in shock at the cold.

The moon was full, pale as her dress, and Nancy gazed up at it, giving herself over to what she had been feeling over the past few days. With the approach of commencement something akin to panic had grown in her. She didn't know what to do or where to go. She had to decide before she sat for her boards, but she had time. She just couldn't imagine that the choice would become easier.

Nancy jumped a little when her phone rang, jittering against her palm. She barely had time to register the name in the ID on the screen before her thumb was pressing the answer call button.

"Congratulations, Nan."

Nancy's knees went weak, and with a sigh she let herself fall to the sand, her heels still in the water. The sound of his voice set her heart to racing, and the disappointment she'd barely acknowledged feeling drained out of her.

"Thanks."

"I would've called you earlier, but I was sure you were partying hard. And it's been a damn busy day here. UC's graduation was today too."

The moon. The moon had been full that night too. Nancy placed the flat of her palm over the scar and fixed her gaze on the pale orb and the deep familiar sound of Ned's voice seemed to resonate in her veins.

"It's all right." She dug her heels into the sand, a little. "It's really nice to hear from you."

"Listen, you wouldn't be coming back to Chicago anytime soon? I really need to take you out for dinner. Miss Nancy Drew, lawyer."

Nancy chuckled. "Anytime soon? As in, how soon?"

"I would say tonight but I don't think there are any more trains this late."

"I'll meet you tomorrow for dinner."

"Fantastic." The genuine warmth in his voice made her shut her eyes in happiness. "Do you want to talk to him? He just went to sleep but I can wake him up."

"I'd love to."

Ned put the phone down and Nancy shivered as the wave lapped over her calves, pushing herself back until she was on dry sand again. She sat up just as the receiver rattled in her ear.

"Hi Mommy."

"Hi honey," Nancy said, a smile in her voice.

\--

Ten years ago, Nancy had been sure that she'd be with Ned now. Probably settled down, but still with him. They'd have a sunny house with a big backyard for the children. Ned would toss the football around with his friends. It was the kind of mental image she never talked about, not to her friends, not even to Ned.

Ned proposed to her when she was still an undergrad at Emerson, when he was finishing his degree in business management, and she had said yes. They had planned to get married a month after she finished her bachelor's, and she had already picked her color, a pale sage, when she found out she was pregnant. She never knew which one of the sessions in his dorm room or her dorm room had been the one, but they had only slept together once they were engaged, once she had the ring on her finger, and all it meant was a shift in their schedule, a choice she had to make, a choice she found she had already made. She would keep the baby.

His stubble brushing her cheeks, his mouth in that slow easy grin as the sheets pooled around them, the last fading rays of sunlight on his chest. Ned. The only man she would ever love, the man who had sworn to love her until the day he died.

She hadn't known that coming so close would unknit them, would undo them.

It was a case, on campus. Slashed tires, and she was looking for the pattern in the victims, the locations, anything. She had been playing a hunch when the culprit had caught her off guard and only by twisting away, in a sudden breathless panic over the baby, had Nancy been able to avoid being gutted. Even so, all the blood, so much blood, shining under the light of that full moon, had scared Nancy and the man who had attacked her, and on the way to the hospital Nancy had waited for it, waited for it.

_You're losing the baby. There's nothing we can do._

She became so agitated by her fear over the child that she started sobbing, hyperventilating, shaking, and they had to drug her. They stitched her up and the baby was fine, she stayed in the hospital overnight with a pale stricken Ned and her father and Hannah by her side, and by the morning she knew.

She wasn't supposed to have a baby. Not really. It had been too close.

"Ned," she had told him, her face already wet with tears, "I can't do this. I can't— I can't have a baby. I can't. I can't."

Ned's face went white as chalk. "What are you saying?"

She shook her head and her throat started to close up.

She hated that she felt relieved when he called their engagement off, that he found the strength to say the words she had all but said, paralyzed by her fear. She hated that she felt relieved when he came to the hospital on the day she had their child, a boy, a boy she named after him, hated that she felt relieved when she signed the papers giving Ned full parental rights and waiving her own.

But, for the most part, she had felt empty. She wanted to be someone else, wanted to be the person Ned needed, a wife and mother, someone who wouldn't leave them. Her son needed a father; Ned was that man, would be the perfect father, would be a great father. She was happy that he wanted to be that father. She hated that she wouldn't be there with them. The occasional photos and phone calls just made her miss them both all the more.

She wanted to see them again so much that it hurt.

\--

"How many?"

The hostess beamed at Nancy, her hand already on the menus. Nancy shifted her weight, feeling suddenly almost shy.

"I'm meeting someone here, actually... Mr. Nickerson."

The hostess's eyes widened slightly. "This way."

He had proposed to her in a restaurant much like this one, with fine expensive tablecloths and no hint of denim in sight. The hotel had two dining rooms; the one downstairs made the bacon cheeseburgers and curly fries for the Chicago tourists, but this restaurant operated by reservation only and served a far upscale clientele. Nancy wore a cocktail dress in rich sleek coffee-colored satin, smoothing the fabric over her thighs as she took a seat at the table.

It was an open secret that almost no one knew, thanks to Nancy's careful wardrobe choices and the summer birth. Ned had a son with his last name and no one really questioned it; she hadn't been so public a personality that the tabloids had picked it up, and soon it all faded into obscurity.

But when Ned walked in, their son walking beside him, holding his hand, Nancy couldn't help but trace his features, finding what in him belonged to Ned, what belonged to her. It had to be clear to anyone with eyes who his parents were.

"Mommy!"

"Hey Nicky," Nancy said, holding her arms open to him, and when he climbed into her lap and hugged her Nancy found herself blinking back tears. Her son. Letting him go felt like dying, a little.

"So how does it feel?"

Nancy opened her eyes and looked at Ned. "To be finished with it all?" Nancy shrugged, sorting through the rote replies, rejecting them all. "Like I don't know what to do now."

"You could always move back here."

Nancy smiled. "Of course I could."

Ned managed three hotels in the city, and kept their son with him on the night shift, when he had to be there. His parents took care of Nick otherwise. She knew all that, just like she knew how Ned took his coffee and that he hated olives and that he still loved her. Keeping him in her thoughts, like this, had made her feel like she'd never really let go.

She and Ned had never kept in anything like regular contact, and they hadn't spoken in the three months before her graduation. She imagined that he'd say he was trying not to distract her from finals, but not hearing from him had been far more distracting than anything else. She had thought he'd forgotten about her graduation, that maybe he was finally letting her go.

She had not seen either of them in over a year. She was always shocked by how much Nick changed in her absence, the length of his hair, the lines of his face.

Ned had chicken nuggets brought up from the regular kitchen for Nick, and he ordered for Nancy without asking; she would never have chosen the risotto but the difficult dish was perfect, and the bite he offered of his filet mignon practically melted in her mouth. Nick scrawled on the back of a paper menu while he told her about his friends in preschool and the puppy he would get for his next birthday if he was a very good boy and that he wanted to be an Eagle Scout when he grew up.

"Daddy was a Eagle Scout."

"I know, baby." She smiled. "He learned a lot of good things, being an Eagle Scout."

They split a slice of cheesecake, though Nick made a face when Nancy let him taste it. Ned talked in generalities, pausing before she mentally filled in each curse word he was skipping in front of their son, and Nancy smiled as he described the extravagant demands of the film crew that had been shooting on location outside, the dinosaur toy infestation at another hotel's pool, Nick's insistence that he wear a full fireman costume to his first day of preschool. Nancy took a glass of the celebratory champagne Ned ordered for them and felt it rise gloriously to her head, fizzing just as warmly as his presence made her feel.

Ned took her hand, across the table. "I have a suite upstairs," he said softly. "If you're too tired to go home for the night."

Nancy held his gaze for a moment and poured herself another glass of champagne. "I will be."

\--

Ned offered to pick Nick up when they got on the elevator, but Nick stubbornly refused, opting to take his father's hand as he gazed up at his mother.

"Which PJs tonight, Nick?"

The disproportionately serious look on her son's face almost made Nancy laugh. "Fire trucks," he told his father, then glanced over at Nancy.

"Not Barbie pajamas?" she teased him.

"Uck!" he pronounced, rubbing a hand over his hair. "Uck! I don't have Barbie pajamas!" He laughed at the suggestion.

"I do."

Nancy kept her face straight, watching Nick consider the idea. "That's okay."

"It's okay with you that I have Barbie pajamas?"

He nodded.

As Nick ran off the elevator and ahead to the hotel room Ned had claimed for them for the night, Ned leaned over and murmured, "I must've missed that particular set."

"I didn't say they still fit," Nancy laughed at him, swiping at his shoulder and almost falling off balance, her palm catching on the jamb to hold herself upright. Finishing off the bottle of champagne probably hadn't been the best idea.

Even so, when Ned opened the door to their room, a room service tray was already waiting with a bottle of water and a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket of ice. Nancy laughed as she touched the wire over the cork.

"You really are making sure I can't go home, aren't you."

"You're a lightweight," Ned teased her, as Nick ran into one of the smaller rooms. He came out with a set of pajama bottoms in his hand, one shoe off, his hair mussed. "All right, Nicky, bathtime?"

"Ugh, no!" Nick giggled. "No bath!"

Ned gave Nancy an apologetic glance. "This won't take long. We'll be right back."

He swept Nick up into his arms, and Nick kicked the entire way, chanting "No bath, no bath." Nancy laughed, but only when Nick couldn't see her; she had a feeling that half of what he was doing was just a performance for her, and she thought of the soft baby powder and milk smell of him when they had been in the hospital, when he was unthinkably small, all tiny fingers and miniature fingernails and a breathless wail she forgave with every blink of his dark eyes. She had been terrified, terrified he would break, terrified of anything that would ever touch him.

That feeling had nearly faded a week after she had given him up. For Ned, she was sure it never had.

Absently Nancy opened the bottle of champagne, but poured herself a glass of water before she filled a flute with the bubbly wine. The rare times she was with Ned, she felt like she had opened a door and crept into a secret place in her own life. He was too comfortable, even with the past constantly playing like a tape in the back of her head. He had been hurt when she'd left. He had never imagined raising their child alone, and even that suspicious hiss of a whisper she kept hearing, that she had been selfish to leave him and Nick behind, couldn't stop her from remembering the horror that had left her slashed and bleeding and terrified on a hospital bed.

Ned was safe. She wasn't. She never had been.

(She could be, maybe. She could be.)

"Oh no you don't—"

Nick burst out of the bathroom with his wet hair up in spikes, Ned close behind with a towel in his hand, and he chased their son into the bedroom, Nick laughing maniacally the entire way. Nancy followed them, walking in just in time to see Ned dive and attack Nick with the towel, briskly rubbing his damp hair until Nick squirmed away.

Finally he was in his fire-truck pajamas, fighting sleep, in a bedroom that wasn't really his. Nancy wondered what his bedroom looked like, whether it was filled with dinosaurs or army men or styrofoam planets, fire trucks or building blocks. She wondered if he had a night light and what Ned had told him about her and whether there had been other mommies in the interim.

"Let's play a game, Ned."

Ned raised an eyebrow. "You have my attention."

Nancy smiled. "You really need to drink some more, I think."

They had to keep quiet, because every time they moved Nancy found herself holding her breath, listening for a creak from Nick's bed. They finished the champagne, and when Nancy suggested a game of truth or dare, Ned laughed and said that if he dared Nancy to do anything, she would probably fall over and throw up.

"Guess you'll have to take all the dares, then."

Ned took a long sip of water. "Can I dare myself?"

"Depends," she said, dropping her voice. His brown eyes kept straying to hers, and Nancy licked her lips, a tingle tripping its way down her spine.

"Truth," he said, and she fought the urge to taste his mouth, the hazy line of stubble along his jaw.

"Are you still mad at me?"

Ned looked down at his hands. "Sometimes," he admitted.

"Now?"

He shook his head. "Not your round anymore."

"Truth," she replied, and had to focus hard to put her glass down without spilling it.

"Will you even think about coming back here? To Chicago?"

Nancy dragged a hand through her hair, letting it fall down her back. "I want to," she said softly.

"But."

She tilted backward until her shoulder blades were touching the back of the couch and focused on the open collar of his button-down shirt, the few strands of light brown hair she could see there. Her breasts were straining at the fabric and she could feel his gaze lingering there without bothering to look. "Why did I leave, if I was just going to come back," she said, and closed her eyes. Her fingers started to drift up to her belly, but she stilled her hand at the hem of her dress. "I'm terrified of this."

"Of what, Nan?"

She shook her head and felt the room spin around her. "That you'll never feel the same about me. That I'll just put him in danger again. That I'll be a terrible mother. That I can't do this."

"But you want to come back anyway."

She lazily rolled her head to the side and peered at him from under her lashes. "I feel safe with you," she whispered. "I want that to be enough."

Ned's gaze searched hers. "You look like you're about to fall asleep, Nan. I think it's time for you to turn in."

\--

Nancy was awake as soon as she crossed the threshold into one of the other bedrooms. "I... didn't bring anything with me," she told Ned, and saw him smile.

"I'll be right back."

It took her three tries to unhook her dress and slip out of it. Her underthings were the color of milky coffee, and she stood in them after kicking her heels off, but clutched her dress back against her chest when the door opened.

Ned's mouth quirked. "Just me," he said, holding up a white undershirt as he shut the door behind him. "It's okay, he's out cold. I looked in on him."

Nancy nodded. "Sorry."

Ned began to nod, but then Nancy unconsciously let the dress slide down to the floor, and his gaze slid down and stayed there. "Nan," he breathed.

With a jolt Nancy glanced down, her hand already coming up to cover the scar. He hadn't seen it before, not really, not like this, and Nancy's stomach roiled in sympathy with the revulsion he must feel.

Ned stepped in close to her, quicker than she could comprehend, and touched her side. She glanced up at him and resisted for a moment when he urged her hand away, but gave in, letting out a slow breath. When his fingertips found the very edge of the scar she shrank back, a little, and he carefully felt his way down the pale skin, over its entire length.

"You have to stop blaming yourself for this," he told her softly.

"It was my fault and he—"

Ned put his thumb over her lips. "But he's fine, Nan," he said, cutting her off. "Doesn't matter how guilty you feel, you aren't going to change that. He's fine. The only thing that would be better for him is having his mother around more than a couple of times a year."

He was close to her, too close to her, and his shirt was halfway open and he exuded an undeniable masculinity, cologne and soap and that hint of sweat and just him. She felt like she was dreaming, dreaming or drowning.

"Do you still want me," she whispered with her eyes closed.

"What was your first clue," he said just as softly.

Her breath came out in a soundless whisper as their lips met.

\--

It was like sympathetic vibration, how attuned she was to him. Her every nerve felt oversensitive, as he traced his thumb over the delicate veins on the inside of her wrist, as he lightly brushed a bra strap from her shoulder. She hesitated before she let her hands rest at his waist, to unfasten his pants and pull them apart to reveal his boxers. A soft stroke of her hand down the front revealed his erection, and he chuckled as he bent in to her, slipping his hand into her bra, stroking her nipple to a point before he shoved the cup down and followed his touch with his lips.

She moaned a little, tilting her head back, boneless as he scraped his teeth over the sensitive tip of her breast. The lean lines of him were firm against her as he stepped close, backing her against the mattress, and as she arched against him she hooked one thumb into his pants and pulled them down.

"Do you still taste the same, Nan?"

She pulled back, meeting his low-lidded gaze. "I think you'd better find out, Ned," she said, and when he bent to her again she laughed as she grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it up over his head.

When his gaze met hers again, his mouth was twisted in something like humor. "I have some condoms in the other room, if you want me to go get them."

Nancy raised an eyebrow. "I hope you have a lot."

Ned grinned. "Fresh box. Wait right here. If you feel like getting naked, please don't hesitate."

"Same to you."

As soon as he was out of the room, Nancy paused with her hands on the band of her panties. She was trying to figure out if sleeping with him was a good idea, but just the mere thought of him trailing kisses down her belly...

The scar.

When Ned walked back in, Nancy was under the covers and watching him as he put the condoms on the bedside table and stripped off the rest of his clothes. "You'd better be naked under there," he said.

"Turn the light off."

Ned stopped with one hand on the coverlet. He shook his head. "Do you really think that after not seeing you for so long, I'm going to do this in the dark like some scared high schooler?"

"Please."

He studied her face for a moment, then went to the door and turned the overhead light off, but turned on the lamp on.

"Ned..."

He shook his head, drawing the cover down, and she shivered at the sudden wave of cold air as it found her bare skin. "I love you," he said softly. "Every bit of you. Stop hiding."

She hated that his lips brushed the scar as he made his way down her body, but soon he was trailing kisses over her inner thighs and she was bunching the sheet in her fist, tensing as he parted her inner lips and his tongue found her clit. With a soft cry she tilted her knees back, and when he urged her feet over his shoulders, she wrapped her legs around him, shivering as he lashed her clit with his tongue. His long fingers plunged between her thighs and she arched up off the bed, whimpering as she writhed under him.

"Stop, I—"

It had been too long. He thrust his fingers into her one more time and she came, hard, her wet inner flesh pulsing against his fingertips as she rotated her hips, grinding into him. A hot burst of anguish went through her when he pulled back before she was finished.

"Oh..."

He pushed forward on his knees and when he moved just-so the length of his cock was pressed against the seam of her wet inner lips and she ground against him, letting out a high squeal when the head of his cock brushed the very tip of her clit, the underside of his shaft rubbing against her sensitive flesh. He closed his eyes and made a pleased grumble, shoving her knees apart and holding them down, and when she began to jerk and shiver underneath him, he pulled back, and then—

"Oh God," she whimpered, at the smooth thrust of his cock as he buried himself inside her. She raked her nails against his shoulders, gritting her teeth. Her inner flesh was so sensitive that every thrust ran like fire deep between her thighs. He only lasted a few thrusts before he pulled out, his mouth sucking hard at her breast, and while she sank, boneless with relief, to the mattress, her eyes going drowsily half-lidded, she heard him ripping open the box of condoms.

Ripping open.

Her eyes flew open. "Ned—"

He shook his head. "Here," he said, and his voice was rough.

Dazedly she nodded as he pulled her over him, straddling his hips, holding his cock for her. "Now," he said urgently, and she gave in to a liquidly full-body shiver as she took him again, slick and tight with years of desire, let gravity claim her as she slid her knees apart and he filled her, impossibly huge inside her. She tossed her hair out of her face and began to rock, very lightly, against him, the wet sound of their joining bringing a prickly flush to her cheeks as Ned cupped her breasts, shifting her angle over him.

"Harder," he begged, jerking under her, and she nodded lazily, sucking in a sharp breath as she planted her palms above his shoulders and fucked him until her orgasm blossomed and bloomed and tore through her, and she rode it out, rode him as he came with her, his fingers digging urgently into her soft tender flesh. He pinched her nipples and she juddered against him, an answering slick gush of arousal flooding between her legs.

She opened her eyes. Her inner thighs were flush against his hips and he was panting under her, still squeezing her breasts. Her gaze dropped to his mouth.

"Yes," she whispered, pushing her shoulders back so her breasts pressed more firmly into his palms. "God, that was it."

He nodded, finally opening his eyes.

The words rose to her lips. The terrible timing wasn't lost on her, given everything, but she didn't stop herself.

"Marry me," she whispered. "Marry me, Ned."

She had never seen that happen behind his eyes before, a sudden veil where all had been clear. "Nan," he said, in a sigh, releasing one breast to stroke her hair away from her flushed cheek.

Her lips were trembling. "Please," she said softly.

"I need time," he said, sounding like every word took monumental effort. "We need time, Nan."

She nodded, and swung off him.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too," she whispered, shivering as she slid under the covers. She had been warm as a furnace. Now she felt like she'd never be warm again.

He touched her face. "It was really good for me, too," he said, trying to draw a smile from her. When her only reply was a wan turn of her lips, he slid over the bed to her, pulling her into his embrace.

"I love you."

She nodded. "But I know better than anyone that sometimes that isn't enough."

\--

"What _is_ that?"

Nancy turned at Bess's exclamation, shading her eyes. A figure was falling through the sky, drifting on the hot July wind with a black and white parachute trailing behind.

"A bird," Nancy said, her face lighting with a sarcastic smile.

Twenty minutes later, Nancy was utterly unsurprised to see Frank Hardy walk through the back door of her father's house. He wore an immaculately tailored summer suit and had only the hint of windblown blush in his cheeks to tip off his method of arrival.

"Just decide to drop in?"

Frank chuckled. "It was a shame to miss the beach party, so how could I turn this down."

She still hadn't taken it off. The strapless ivory silk gown pooled in heavy folds around her chair, her slender bare arms glowing with a light summer tan. The engagement ring Ned's parents had known would be hers since she was sixteen was sparkling on her left hand; her husband was gently stroking the ball of his thumb back and forth over it.

Their wedding had been the opposite of what they had planned before Nick came along. It was a morning affair at the courthouse, with her father and his parents alone to witness it, although she hadn't been able to resist the lure of the ivory silk, the sight of Ned in his classic black suit. Nick had watched, with his usual patience and restraint, from his grandparents' laps.

The reception, though, what they'd been calling the afterparty, had spilled out into the yard, through the garden. The head table was out in the backyard, under a massive white tent, and when she moved just-so Nancy could feel the sunlight on her face, and she thought that if she could just stay here with Ned, his hand in hers, until the moon took the sky and everyone left and they could just lie in the grass staring up at the stars, she would be more content than she had ever been.

"So how was the bar?"

"Oh, that old thing." Nancy waved a hand.

"She only made the highest score in state history," Bess put in, deftly picking the leaves from a strawberry.

"Not... not quite. Second best."

George scoffed. "Only because the top guy cheated."

"Always so modest," Frank shook his head. "Congratulations. On the test and on finally getting hitched."

"Thanks," Ned said, and for a moment Nancy tried to read the look that passed between them, but let it go. She was content, more content than she had been in a very long time, and Ned didn't have to put a possessive arm around her, didn't have to mark his territory in front of Frank, not anymore.

"Mommy—"

Nick patted at her arm. Nancy turned and swung him up onto her lap, and he giggled, his skin sun-warmed under her touch.

"Yeah, baby?"

"Aunt Hannah says I can't have any more punch." He fidgeted as he said it, and she noticed a wet ring around his mouth. "More punch!"

Nancy touched his baby-round cheek. "You know those apple juice boxes we brought along for you? Man, those sound so delicious right now. I can't wait to go inside and drink one right down to the bottom. It would be so yummy—"

"Juice box!" he howled in answer, squirming, and with a laugh and a kiss on his forehead she set him back down, watching as he pinballed through the legs of the adults toward the house, where Hannah waited for him, an indulgent smile on her face.

Frank shook his head. "You're better at keeping secrets than I ever gave you credit for."

That was when Ned slipped a hand around her waist, and with a contented sigh Nancy leaned her head on his shoulder, taking in the sea of happy faces around them. The day had been blessedly cool in the midst of an unprecedented hot spell, although whenever Ned leaned close to whisper something in her ear, his fingertips drifting against the small of her back or down to gently brush her elbow, she found herself shivering in the high sun, a heat rising that she found deliciously familiar.

When she really let herself think about it, she found herself marveling, blown away. She didn't deserve him, didn't deserve this, but she had wanted it so fiercely that it scared her. She hadn't understood the next step because she had almost taken it, and the choice had somehow been there again, there for her to rectify.

She wasn't working at her father's firm, but they would be in Chicago, the two of them and Nick, and he would be able to see his grandparents on the weekends, and he had made her promise that she wouldn't leave, not ever again. Her eyes had been glistening when she promised. The sight of him never failed to warm her heart.

Just as Ned's touch brought her nothing so much as a nearly painful joy.

"I don't think this has ever really been a secret," she said, sliding her arm around her husband's waist.

As Frank, Bess, and George chuckled, Ned brushed her earlobe with the tip of his nose and whispered, "Maybe only from yourself, Nan."

When his lips brushed the point of her jaw, Nancy's eyelids fluttered down.

Maybe next time they'd have a little girl.


End file.
